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UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORN 
AT    LOS  ANGELES 


A   GLANCE  AT 
GOVERNMENT 

SHORT    ESSAYS    ON 

THE     RISE     AND     BASIS     OF    GOVERNMENT, 

THE  STUDY  OF  POLITICS,   THE   UNITY 

OF   SOVEREIGNTY,    AND    THE 

SAVING    PRINCIPLE 

BY 

CICERO  W.  HARRIS 

AUTHOR     OF     "a     (fORTHCOMINg)     HISTORY     OF    THE 
SECTIONAL    struggle" 


PHILADELPHIA 

PRINTED    BY  J.    B.    LIPPINCOTT   COMPANY 
1896 


»    O        »  J      IS  ' 


»  «  »    *  »  • 


•  C'   ' 

■  «  «     > 


Copyright,  1896, 

BY 

Cicero  W.  Harris. 


THIS     LITTLE    BOOK     IS     DEDICATED,     WITH     THE 

PROFOUND     RESPECT    OF    THE    AUTHOR, 

TO    HIS     FRIEND 

B.    J.    SAGE,    Esq., 

AUTHOR    or   "  THE   REPUBLIC   OF   REPUBLICS," 

SINCEREST     OF     AMERICAN     POLITICAL     THINKERS. 


G2G771 


PREFACE. 


The  first  two  divisions  of  this  "  Fragment 

of  Government''  *  treat  of  government  in 

general ;  the  last  three,  of  government  in 

the  United  States.     The  whole  is  simply 

what    its    title    imports, — "  A    Glance    at 

Government." 

Cicero  W.  Harris. 

Washington,  February,  1896. 
*  Bentham. 


CONTENTS. 


FAGB 

The  Rise  of  Government 9 

The  Basis  of  Government 26 

The  Study  of  Politics 32 

The  Unity  of  Sovereignty 38 

The  Saving  Principle 45 


THE 

RISE   OF   GOVERNMENT. 


No  statement  of  the  origin  of  civilization 
and  pfovernment  is  reasonable  which  does 
not  take  into  consideration  the  condition 
of  the  world  as  it  is  revealed  by  research 
into  prehistoric  manners  and  customs.  In 
other  words,  the  world  of  to-day  is  not  the 
world  of  yesterday  in  important  particulars. 
Sir  John  Lubbock,  with  the  instinct  of  the 
naturalist,  seeks  in  the  present  life  and 
usages  among  savages  the  key  to  the  mys- 
teries of  the  archaic  past.  He  thinks  he 
finds  in  the  endogamy  and  exogamy  of  the 
Polynesians  and  Southern  Africans,  in  the 
brute-like  solitude  of  the  Dyaks  of  Borneo, 
and  in  various  other  traits'  of  barbarous 
peoples  in  the  existing  world  a  sufificient 
explanation  of  what  lay  beyond  the  ken 
of  the  oldest  students  in  the  early  ages  of 

9 


lO  A    GLANCE    AT    GOVERNMENT. 

India,  Persia,  Egypt,  Greece,  Etruria,  and 
"  almighty  Rome."  On  the  other  hand, 
such  historical  investigators  into  law  and 
government  as  Sir  Henry  Maine,  men  of 
supreme  fidelity  to  the  critical  method  and 
of  comprehensive  and  luminous  intellects, 
have  not  availed  themselves  of  all  the 
knowledge  within  their  reach, — knowledge 
which  would  have  modified  their  views  on 
some  topics  and  extended  their  outlook  in 
all  directions.  Perhaps,  after  all,  the  truest 
view  of  the  origin  of  civilization  has  been 
taken  by  those  French  and  German  sci- 
entists who  are  free  from  scepticism,  on 
the  one  hand,  and  from  the  transcendental 
notions  of  modern  philosophy  on  the 
other.  The  critical  method  has  ascertained 
during  this  century  at  least  these  cardinal 
points  bearing  on  our  subject :  The  true 
philology,  without  which  any  study  of 
early  institutions  would  be  impossible ; 
through  that  the  foundation  of  Aryan  civ- 
ilization in  the  wonderful  Sanscrit  texts  ; 
the  knowledge  of  early  Roman  law  in  the 
discovery  by  Niebuhr  at  Rome  of  the 
treatise  by  the  great  jurisconsult,  Gains; 


THE    RISE    OF    GOVERNMENT.  II 

the  "finds"  in  Behistun,  Nineveh,  Rosetta, 
and  on  the  upper  Nile,  the  revelations 
(vague  as  they  are)  of  the  Moabitish 
mountain  cities,  the  very  latest  unearthings 
of  Troy,  Tiryns,  and  Mykaenae  by  Schlie- 
mann.  The  age  has  been  prolific  of  the 
most  brilliant  and  the  most  profound 
scholarship.  To  mention  the  mere  names 
of  the  investigators  would  take  the  space 
of  an  article  of  more  than  average  length, 
and  then — such  is  human  infirmity — some 
of  the  very  greatest  would  inevitably  be 
omitted. 

Early  man, — what  was  he,  absolutely 
and  relatively?  Far  down  in  the  bowels 
of  Southwestern  France,  in  ancient  Ger- 
many, in  the  kitchen-middens  of  Denmark, 
in  the  mounds  of  North  America,  remains 
of  an  extinct  civilization  have  recently 
been  exhumed.  With  the  buried  races 
of  Neanderthal  and  Cro-Magnon,  at  least, 
savans  have  remarked  the  presence  of  the 
implements  of  civilization  far  different  from 
any  known  to  exist  among  the  races  of 
man  which  have  flourished  in  the  geolog- 
ical period  in  which  we  live.     Crude  but 


12  A    GLANCE   AT    GOVERNMENT. 

distinct  drawings  on  bone  far  in  advance 
of  the  execution  of  the  lowest  savages  of 
our  ao-e  have  been  recovered.  It  has  been 
seen  that  the  polar  bear,  the  mammoth, 
the  reindeer  of  a  huge  now  non-existent 
species,  stalked  the  plains  and  primeval 
forests  of  Gaul  and  the  Netherlands. 
Trees  that  no  lonrer  live  in  such  latitudes 

o 

have  been  found  in  the  peat  bogs  of  Scan- 
dinavia. Philology  has  come  to  the  aid 
of  palaeontology  and  archaeology,  and 
words  have  been  unravelled  and  roots  have 
been  traced  through  a  dozen  languages  up 
to  their  primitive  source  or  sources.  In- 
stead of  the  verbal  culture  which  simplified 
the  speech  of  early  man,  as  heretofore 
imagined,  we  see  that  he  spoke  in  poly- 
syllables w^ords  of  learned  length  and 
thundering  sound.  Indeed,  all  of  our 
forefathers'  ideas  with  respect  to  primitive 
culture  have  been  revolutionized.  Science 
has  blown  its  breath  on  them,  and  they 
have  perished. 

The  first  man  was  timorous.  He  trem- 
bled, as  Montesquieu  says,  at  the  fall  of 
a  leaf.      But  wdien  other  men  came,  and 


THE    RISE    OF    GOVERNMENT.  1 3 

association  was  formed,  we  had  the  first 
society.  It  came  about  in  mutual  need 
and  knowledge.  Men,  like  some  animals, 
must  have  company.  The  first  movement 
was  probably  friendly,  the  second  hostile; 
some  men,  not  satisfied  with  what  they  had 
by  occupation  or  combination,  made  war 
for  conquest  or  imagined  self-protection  on 
others.  Hence  associations  for  govern- 
ment and  wars  of  conquest  and  aggran- 
dizement. 

Before  diversity  of  race  arose  there  was 
civilization  and  government.  Before  na- 
tions there  were  tribes.  Before  tribes 
there  were  communities.  Before  com- 
munities there  were  families.  The  first 
governor  of  men  was  the  patriarch,  the 
first  rule  that  of  patria  potcstas,  as  the 
civil  lawyers  phrase  it.  Out  of  the  need 
of  society  sprang  the  rule  of  the  one. 
But  it  was  not  perhaps  in  the  beginning  a 
despotic  rule,  as  of  an  absolute  master 
over  life  and  property,  but  representative, 
the  father  first,  then  the  father's  direct  de- 
scendants, then  his  fictitious  representa- 
tives, and  last  of  all  a  collateral  descend- 


14  A    GLANCE    AT    GOVERNMENT. 

ant.  The  patriarch  among  Chaldeans, 
Hebrews,  and  Hindoos  was  head  of  the 
family  in  religious  usage  as  well  as 
material  concerns.  He  offered  the  earliest 
sacrifices  as  pontifex  maximus  by  right  of 
his  position.  The  very  earliest  worship 
was  that  of  a  Supreme  Being — it  may 
have  been  anthropomorphic  or  otherwise. 
The  Hebrew  and  Semitic  God  was  a  per- 
sonal deity.  But  the  Aryan  Dyaus-pitar 
(Heaven-father)  seems  to  have  been  a 
Divine  Reason  embodied,  if  embodied,  in 
the  errand  element  that  was  imminent  in 
thought  and  potency  at  the  moment.  If 
lightning,  it  was  Indra  ;  if  earthly  creature, 
Agni ;  and  so  forth.  The  earliest  religious 
culture  was  simple  but  very  pure.  Error 
crept  in  apace  as  wealth  was  acquired  and 
the  conquering  arms  brought  under  newer 
and  lower  races.  It  is  not  necessary  to 
accept  all  the  philosophers  say  as  to  the 
oricrin  of  religion.  Suffice  it  to  claim  as 
probably  true  that  all  races,  all  nations 
that  have  appeared  on  the  earth,  have 
been  worshippers  in  some  guise  of  super- 
natural power.     Among  most  of  the  an- 


THE    RISE    OF    GOVERNMENT.  1 5 

cients  this  power  or  these  powers  were  a 
part  of  the  visible  world  or  universe.  The 
modern  notion  of  abstraction  of  deity 
seems  to  have  been  but  dimly  grasped  by 
a  few  of  the  more  elevated  minds  among 
the  ancients.  In  India,  religion  continued 
to  be  the  basis  of  society  and  government. 
The  Brahmans  superseded  the  Vedic  hym- 
nologists,  and  laid  heavy  burdens  on  the 
conscience.  At  first  there  was  no  caste. 
Then  the  Brahman  claimed  an  intellectual 
and  spiritual  primacy.  He  did  not  arro- 
gate material  pomp  and  dignity,  but  left, 
as  a  general  thing,  the  administration  of 
the  reeal  eovernment  to  the  two  other 
high-caste  elements,  the  Kshatriya  and 
Vaisyha.  But  he  was  priest,  lawyer,  and 
teacher.  Failing  other  heirs,  and  some- 
times even  if  there  were  other  heirs,  he 
succeeded  to  his  pupils'  estate. 

The  world  was  probably  peopled  from 
Armenia  or  the  table-lands  of  Pamir,  in 
the  northwest  of  India  and  northeast  of 
Afghanistan,  south  of  Central  Asia.*     But 

*  Latham  gives   Germany   as   the  birthplace  of    the 
Aryan  nations. 


l6  A    GLANCE    AT    GOVERNMENT. 

there  is  respectable  authority  among  phil- 
ologists and  ethnologists  for  the  statement 
that  the  original  home  of  the  Aryan  or 
Indo-European  family  of  nations  was  in 
Germany.  Geiger  quotes  on  this  head 
the  Englishman  Latham  with  entire  ap- 
probation, but  without  any  convincing 
argument.  It  is  certain  that  only  a  small 
part  of  the  great  human  species  belongs 
to  this  progressive  race.  The  larger  por- 
tion springs  from  other  sources,  and  has 
remained,  if  not  stationary,  at  least  at  a 
comparatively  low  state  of  development 
within  the  knowledge  of  civilized  peoples. 
But  it  is  a  mistake  to  rate  such  races  as 
the  Finns,  the  Arabs,  the  Chinese,  as  un- 
deserving of  the  notice  of  historians  and 
anthropologists.  Possibly  the  theory  of 
the  Frenchman  Quatrefages,  a  very  con- 
servative investigator,  is  the  correct  one : 
they  arrived  at  a  period  of  development 
commensurate  with  their  physical  and 
mental  powers,  and  while  their  skulls  in- 
dicate the  ability  to  make  enlargement  of 
faculties,  the  disposition  has  been  wanting, 
due  probably,  as  another  authority  states, 


THE    RISE    OF    GOVERNMENT.  1/ 

to  the  morbid  character  of  their  ancestor 
worship.  However  that  may  be,  and  we 
know  that  religion  is  one  of  the  most  im- 
portant bases  of  national  character, — how- 
ever, we  say,  that  may  be,  the  master  race 
of  history  has  been  the  Aryan,  taking  any 
considerable  stretch  of  time  in  which  to 
judge.  But,  as  might  easily  be  shown,  it 
is  not  the  great  Aryan  race  which  first 
built  cities  and  established  empires,  which 
founded  the  science  of  astronomy,  which 
invented  letters  ;  but  that  people  of  lingual 
affinity  with  the  Turks  and  Finns,  the 
Accadians,  or  ancient  Chaldeans.*  Both 
Assyria  and  Egypt  were  probably  in  ex- 
istence before  the  earliest  invasion  of  what 
is  now  known  as  Hindostan.  The  Aryans 
were  first  a  hunting  then  a  pastoral  race, 
long  before  they  knew  what  commerce 
was  or  had  a  name  for  ship  or  ocean. 

We  have  not    discussed    the    unity   or 
variety   of  mankind,   but   have  rather  as- 


*  The  very  latest  investigators  seem  to  throv^f  some 
doubt  on  this,  but  I  have  kept  the  text  unaltered  as  in- 
dicating the  probable  view. 

2* 


1 8  A    GLANCE    AT    GOVERNMENT. 

sumed  the  former.  It  is  a  demonstrable 
theory,  aside  from  Scriptural  revelation. 
But  space  is  wanting  for  proofs.  Some  of 
the  more  recent  scientists  have  shown  that 
both  Darwin  and  Agassiz  were  mistaken 
in  the  assumption  of  various  origins  of 
the  human  species. 

In  this  essay  the  physical  method  has 
been  relied  upon  in  part  and  the  lingual  in 
part ;  for  science  is  one,  and  the  basis  of 
civilization  is  neither  exclusively  mental 
nor  entirely  moral,  however  much  the 
ethical  and  philosophical  elements  may 
enter  into  the  statement. 

Before  defining  what  we  mean  by  gov- 
ernment and  liberty,  let  us  sum  up  the 
particulars  of  elementary  man.  i.  We 
have  a  creature  at  the  head  of  creation, 
endowed  with  reason  and  free  agency.  2. 
His  relations  are  with,  first,  a  supreme 
Creator  and  Governor ;  second,  his  fellow- 
men  ;  third,  his  own  future.  These  rela- 
tions determine  his  whole  status  and  fix 
him  in  the  scale  of  being.  They  are 
necessary  to  his  continued  rational  exist- 
ence.    Without   the    idea    of  God    he    is 


THE    RISE    OF    GOVERNMENT.  1 9 

Spiritually  hopeless.     Without  civil  rela- 
tions he  is  a   cave-dweller,  adrift  on  the 
wilderness,  at  the  mercy  of  the  strongest 
and    fiercest,  having   no   comfort,  no  real 
pleasures,  no  mental  exhilaration,  no  def- 
inite aims  of  existence,  no  care  for  any- 
thing higher  or  better  than  simple  food, 
scant  raiment,  crude  lodging,  and  content 
with  these  and  physical  safety   from   the 
storm  and  ravening  beast  or  insidious  rep- 
tile.   Whatever  man  may  have  been  in  the 
beginning,  he  had  desires  above  these,  we 
believe  on  evidence  :  he  was  endowed  with 
at  least  gesture  if  not  simple  speech,  and  he 
looked  beyond  the  present  life,  it  may  have 
been  faintly,  gropingly,  imagining  death  an 
extended  sleep  with  dreams  of  things  he 
knew  in  the  life  of  the  present.     We  con- 
ceive of  primitive  man  as  a  rational  creat- 
ure,   and    as    such    possessed  of  faculties 
above  those  of  mere  imitation  and  brute 
necessity.    We  conceive  of  him  as  a  moral 
creature,   recognizing    God    through    that 
spark  from  the  Divine  Spirit,  his  immortal 
soul.     We  conceive  of  him,  last  of  all,  as 
a  social  being  compelled  by  the  instincts 


20  A    GLANCE   AT    GOVERNMENT. 

and  aspirations  of  his  order  to  make  society 
and  established  government  for  his  own 
welfare  and  pleasure. 

The  first  government  was  patriarchal. 
As  the  wants  of  men  and  the  number  of 
men  increased  families  became  village 
communities  or  septs,  and  these  in  turn 
formed  by  association,  clans,  tribes,  and 
nations.  At  first,  all  of  the  members  of 
the  little  state  were  bound  by  close  con- 
sanguineous ties.  Then,  as  the  common- 
wealth grew,  the  family  (this  was  in  India, 
but  something  like  it  was  seen  in  other 
early  nations)  became  a  sort  of  fiction  and 
was  incorporated  by  the  name  of  Joint 
Undivided  Family.  The  patria  potestas 
was  extended  to  the  nearest  of  kin  in  the 
direct  line,  presently  to  be  supplied  in  de- 
fault of  heirs  by  various  substitutes  and 
the  collateral  kindred.  The  principle  of 
representation  is  not  once  lost,  but  is  kept 
alive  even  after  the  joint  family  has  passed 
(not  by  absorption,  however)  into  the  tribe 
and  the  father  or  father's  representative 
has  become  the  chieftain.  In  this  primi- 
tive state,  some  of  the  philosophers  and 


THE    RISE    OF    GOVERNMENT.  21 

savans  represent,  the  wives  as  well  as  the 
lands  and  flocks  were  communal.  Religion 
in  the  far  East,  at  least,  degenerated  into 
ancestor  worship  or  the  cult  of  the  pitris. 
The  more  Eastern  nations  reached  early 
a  stage  of  considerable  cultivation  and 
stopped  developing,  perhaps  not  suddenly, 
perhaps  not  altogether  at  all,  but  only  by 
comparison  with  the  Western  robust 
nations  of  modern  times.  The  highest 
culture  ever  obtained  was  that  of  Athens, 
the  highest  jurisprudence  that  of  Rome. 
There  is  nothing  in  the  art  and  law  of  India 
and  China  comparable  with  the  ideas  of  the 
Periclean,  Augustan,  and  Justinian  ages. 

This  essay  is  too  short  for  a  review  of 
the  influence  of  religion  and  culture  upon 
law  and  government.  We  know  that  some 
nations  who  achieved  a  noble  development 
in  art  and  literature  had  low  ideals  in  re- 
ligion and  defective  principles  of  govern- 
ment. But  it  is  probably  safe  to  say  that 
no  permanent  and  high  civilization  in  the 
completest  sense  is  possible  where  there  is 
no  just  conception  of  the  relation  between 
these  branches  of  civilization.     Certainly 


22  A    GLANCE    AT    GOVERNMENT. 

the  remark  is  true  of  some  ancient  nations 
whose  civihzation  is  buried  and  lost.  Egyp- 
tian beast  and  river  worship,  the  external 
form  of  an  internal  religion, — that  of  the 
priests, — may  not  at  first  glance  consort 
with  the  grand,  massive  art  of  Luxor  and 
the  splendors  of  Memphis.  But  the  ser- 
vile people,  who  obeyed  their  own  natures 
in  bowing  down  to  the  crocodile  and  the 
will  of  a  tyrant  in  placing  great  stones  one 
upon  the  other,  through  centuries,  fell  at 
last  into  such  degradation  as  has  over- 
taken only  those  nations  who  have  imitated 
their  example  or,  without  having  it  before 
their  eyes,  have  adopted  its  spirit.  The 
high  Aryan  conqueror,  springing  from  the 
cradle  of  nations  and  waving  his  scimitar 
as  his  warrant  of  authority,  may  not  in 
the  earlier  days  of  his  power  have  had 
"  the  wisdom  of  the  Egyptians,"  but  he 
had  what  was  far  better,  a  clearer  idea  of 
his  place  among  men  and  his  responsi- 
bility to  the  Supernal  Power. 

Man  is  great  by  inheritance  and  effort. 
The  German,  Celtic,  and  Slavonian  races 
are  the  foremost  because  they  have  not 


THE    RISE    OF    GOVERNMENT.  23 

sold  their  birthright  for  a  mess  of  pottage. 
Not  the  first  to  leave  their  ancestral  seats 
among  the  high  table-lands  of  Asia,  back- 
ward it  may  be  said  in  building  empires, 
these  Indo-Europeans  going  westward  and 
southward,  never  eastward,  have  hewn  out 
at  last  a  gigantic  civilization  of  ideas  and 
freedom  which  is  fast  overspreading  the 
earth  with  its  power  and  beneficence.  It 
has  been  fashionable  to  obscure  the  re- 
ligious side  of  our  Aryan  ancestors,  and 
to  .speak  of  those  ideas  as  coming  alto- 
gether from  an  alien  and  inferior  race,  the 
Semitic.  Not  so  do  we  read  the  book  of 
their  history  as  seen  in  the  study  of  lan- 
guage, in  the  remains  of  rude  art  and  in 
the  fragments  of  Greek,  Roman,  and  Hin- 
doo literature,  to  say  nothing  of  tradition, 
folk  lore,  existing  laws,  customs,  and  man- 
ners. Max  Miiller's  translations  have 
made  the  present  generation  familiar  with 
the  religion  of  the  first  Hindoos.  It  was 
not  a  crude  pagan  worship  of  stocks, 
stones,  and  reptiles,  but  the  adoration  of 
the  grand  powers  of  Nature  as  t}'pifying 
the    One    Power    ineffable    in   hea\-en    far 


24  A    GLANCE   AT    GOVERNMENT. 

away.  Let  us  never  lose  sight  of  this  great 
fact.  The  gods  of  Northman  and  Teu- 
ton, although  harsher  in  their  vindictive 
aspect  than  Aditi  and  the  seven  supreme 
gods  of  the  Vedas,  were  not  the  fierce 
spirits  of  darkness  to  propitiate  whose  ma- 
lign power  the  Shaman  prays  and  shakes 
his  rattle.  No  god  of  Kaffir  or  Australian 
in  our  advanced  age  rivals  Balder.  What 
a  distance  in  conception  of  human  and 
divine  relations  is  there  between  the  Poly- 
nesian and  the  most  primitive  Aryan  ! 

We  reach  another  stage  of  thought  here. 
Has  civilization  always  progressed,  or  has 
it  sometimes  receded  through  ages  in 
certain  nations  and  races  ?  This  is  the 
philosopher's  crux.  We  hold,  against  a 
powerful  school,  that  there  has  not  been 
uniform,  nor  any  thing  approaching  uniform, 
progression,  as  there  has  certainly  not  been 
uniform  retrogression.  The  world  is  wiser 
in  the  extent  of  its  information,  prouder 
in  the  grandeur  of  its  aims,  purer  in  the 
increasing  beneficence  of  its  institutions ; 
the  world  is  richer  in  mental,  moral,  and 
material  means  to  the  ends  of  a  just  and 


THE    RISE    OF    GOVERNMENT.  2  5 

ideal  civilization.  Progress  has  been  grad- 
ual, steady,  nearly  uniform,  but  there  have 
been  great  wastes  where  scarce  an  oasis 
was  to  be  discerned  by  the  solitary  inves- 
tigator. It  will  not  do  to  say  that  these 
were  periods  of  real  recuperation  hidden 
behind  the  appearance  of  devastation  and 
decay,  for  that  is  merely  begging  the  ques- 
tion, which  is  one  of  absolute  and  not  com- 
parative decadence.  The  fall  of  Carthage 
and  the  long  subsequent  dissolution  of 
Roman  dominion  left  all  North  Africa  in 
a  state  of  semi-barbarism,  from  which  even 
the  sway  of  the  enlightened  Saracen  did 
not  relieve  it.  No  successor  arose  to  this 
Saracen  in  his  original  home,  and  to  this 
day  the  seats  of  the  Arabians,  the  Syrians, 
the  Assyrians'  empire,  are  occupied  by  the 
detested  and  degenerate  Turk.  Nothing 
can  be  alleged  of  the  fall  of  the  Romans 
in  their  eternal  city  and  the  countries  of 
its  conquests,  because  the  civilization  of 
the  Romans,  plus  the  mental,  moral,  and 
other  characteristics  of  the  Goths,  forms 
the  grandest  type  of  racial  and  national 
character  the  world  has  ever  recognized. 


THE 

BASIS   OF   GOVERNMENT. 


What  is  government?  what  rational 
liberty  ? 

On  the  answers  to  these  questions  de- 
pend the  happiness  and  welfare  of  any 
people.  Should  we  say  with  the  learned 
and  eloquent  author  of  the  "  Spirit  of 
Laws,"  that  that  is  the  best  government 
which  best  suits  the  genius  of  a  people 
and  which  is  also  the  best  administered  ? 
Or,  with  more  modern  ideas,  borrowed 
probably  from  some  of  the  Greeks,  must 
we  hold  that  that  government  is  the  model 
which  is  most  consonant  with  popular  de- 
sires ?  After  all,  the  view  of  Montesquieu 
and  the  view  of  the  republican  are  not  in- 
compatible. The  people,  sooner  or  later, 
will  adopt  a  democratic  government  if  not 
restrained  or  kept  in  a  state  of  gross  ig- 
norance and  servility.  Restraints  are  un- 
26 


THE    BASIS    OF    GOVERNMENT.  2/ 

successful  after  a  people  have  had  a 
glimpse  of  liberty.  Now  let  us  not  be 
hidebound.  There  is  liberty  under  other 
forms  of  government  than  the  republican. 
Some  constitutional  monarchies  are  mon- 
archies only  in  name.  Some  republics 
have  been  very  despotisms  for  at  least 
short  periods.  Athens  was  under  Cleon. 
Rome,  under  Scylla,  was  a  confessed  tyr- 
anny. The  present  governments  of  Eng- 
land and  Sweden-Norway  are  very  liberal, 
and,  if  there  were  no  friction  between 
church  and  state,  Italy  would  be  regarded 
alm.ost  universally  as  a  model  of  a  state 
havine  free  institutions.  In  fact,  the  ten- 
dency  of  modern  thought  has  been  steadily 
to  freedom,  with  occasional  lapses'  for 
short  periods  and  notable  exceptions  for 
longer  ones.  The  free  Gothic  spirit  of  old 
Spain  is  again  breaking  forth  in  the  "  Ever 
Faithful  Isle,"  and  Teutonic  liberty  in  Fa- 
therland has  not  always  slept  since  the  days 
of  Hermann,  and  is  not  now  slumbering. 

On  the  setting  up  of  our  experiment,  it 
was  seen  that  ideals  of  statesmen  and 
philosophers  were  possible  of  realization. 


28  A    GLANCE    AT    GOVERNMENT. 

Indeed,  no  ideal  had  ever  been  formed  quite 
equal  to  the  state  of  facts  exhibited  in  the 
United  States.  Whether  we  borrowed  of 
the  Greek  or  the  Italian  republics,  of  the 
United  Netherlands,  of  Switzerland,  of  the 
Hanseatic  League,  of  Rousseau's  concep- 
tion of  a  Social  Compact,  or  fused  all  these 
with  existing  remains  of  our  colonial 
dependency, — the  models  we  took  from 
Britain, — the  result  was  something  unique 
and  world-pervading.  This  is  no  place  in 
which  to  consider  separate  models  of 
government  or  deal  philosophically  with 
government  in  the  abstract.  We  certainly 
cling  to  no  threefold  division  of  govern- 
ments, such  as  those  of  Tacitus  and  Mon- 
tesquieu, usually  adopted  by  writers.  To 
us  it  suffices  that  governments  seem  to  be 
as  to  their  spirit  free  and  despotic,  with 
shades  between.  May  we  not  be  permitted 
to  state  compendiously  that  all  enlightened 
government  is  either  democratic  or  aristo- 
cratic,  seeing  that  in  absolute  monarchies 
on  the  modern  plan  the  noble  class,  or  a 
part  of  it,  controls  the  sovereign  as  an 
imperiuni  in  iniperio  ? 


THE    BASIS    OF    GOVERNMENT.  29 

The  great  fact  in  government  is  the 
administration.  As  the  people  in  hberal 
governments  appreciate  this  fact,  there  will 
be  improvement  in  their  condition.  All 
through  history  we  see  the  law  of  action 
and  reaction  between  rulers  and  ruled. 
At  last  we  have  reached  the  period  of  full 
representation  which  precludes  the  use  of 
such  words  :  the  people  rule  themselves, 
— in  theory,  at  least. 

This  is  a  most  wonderful  step  forward. 
The  brilliant  Athenian  thought  he  had 
taken  it  when  his  Eupatrid  order  ceased 
to  control  the  affairs  of  state.  But,  alas  ! 
he  legislated  merely  for  the  day  :  impatient 
to  grasp  everything  at  once,  he  did  not  lay 
very  deep  and  secure  the  foundations  of 
social  order  and  popular  freedom.  The 
Italian  republics,  modelled  on  those  of  an- 
tiquity, and  adapted  to  the  purposes  of 
mediaeval  trade,  fell  far  short  of  perfection. 
Faction  became  the  curse  of  all,  and  on 
the  ruins  of  democracy  arose  a  number  of 
ducal  and  princely  houses.  The  law  of 
liberty  has  been  the  law  of  progress,  but, 
as    in    culture    and    civilization  generally, 

3* 


30  A    GLANCE    AT    GOVERNMENT. 

there  have  not  been  wanting  evidences  of 
sad  decline.  We  take  heart  from  what  we 
see  and  feel  about  us  in  contrast  with  what 
we  know  is  behind.  Whether  government, 
as  has  been  insisted  by  Rousseau  and 
Jefferson,  is  based  altogether  in  its  original 
on  contract  or  consent,  or,  as  held  by 
writers  of  the  adverse  school,  on  power,  is 
neither  worth  our  while  to  consider  as  a 
practical  question  nor  to  reject  altogether 
as  having  no  interest  for  the  political  stu- 
dent. What  we  know  is  that  at  some 
stage  in  human  development  the  idea  of 
consent  was  adopted.  It  is  our  basis  now, 
possibly  by  slow  evolution,  with  occasional 
set  backs,  from  a  primitive  state  in  which 
the  patriarch  ruled  his  family,  son,  and 
servant,  with  a  measure  of  absolute  au- 
thority as  the  representative  head.  In  the 
second  stage  we  have  the  principle  of 
representation  carried  further :  the  near- 
est kinsman  rules.  The  third  stage  brings 
on  the  elected  chieftain.  Always  there  is 
progress  from  power  to  liberty. 

Is   this  view   less    flattering    to    human 
vanity  or  less  tenable  upon  investigation 


THE    BASIS    OF    GOVERNMENT.  3 1 

than  tliat  in  which  man  now  recovers  what 
was  his  in  the  beginning  without  hmitation, 
but  which  he  through  weakness  yielded  ? 
Is  all  our  safety  in  revolution,  and  is  there 
no  security  in  the  essential  dignity  of  hu- 
man nature  and  in  the  flexible  but  un- 
erring law  of  progress  ? 


THE 

STUDY   OF   POLITICS. 


In  these  days,  when  "  Confound  your 
politics"  is  a  popular  refrain,  it  is  fitting 
that  the  study  of  government  should  be 
carried  on  more  scientifically  than  at  any 
previous  era  of  the  world's  history.  And 
yet  there  is  great  danger  that  what  is 
gained  in  knowledge  of  details  and  nicety 
of  methods  may  be  lost  in  accuracy  of 
scholarship  and  comprehensiveness  of 
principles.  As  science  itself  becomes  a 
matter  of  specialization  very  largely,  so 
political  science,  a  segment  of  the  circle, 
is  apt  to  become  unduly  specialized.  It 
can  afford,  least  of  all  sciences,  to  submit 
to  this  narrowing  process.  Taught  in 
school  and  college,  without  recourse  to  the 
elemental  principles  of  human  nature  and 
too  much  as  a  thing  apart,  with  only 
32 


THE    STUDY    OF    POLITICS.  33 

slight  reference  to  the  fundamental  ordi- 
nary  facts  of  life,  and  devoid  frequently  of 
those  illustrations  drawn  from  the  parlia- 
mentary annals  and  the  originals  of  his- 
tor}%  it  is  the  mere  husk  of  information,  a 
showy  sham  and  mocking  pretence.  As  to 
those  parts  of  comparative  politics  bearing 
directly  on  representative  institutions  and 
the  development  of  republican  govern- 
ment, we  have  plenty  of  learned  disquisi- 
tion on  the  classic  states,  the  mediaeval 
republics,  and  on  the  concrete  idea  of  the 
state  itself, — the  modern  state,  with  its 
autonomous  functions  and  international 
obligations.  But  of  the  reason  of  being  of 
our  own  particular  form  of  government, 
as  shown  by  the  facts  of  its  formation  and 
preservation,  the  teaching  of  the  day  is 
absurdly  meagre  and  strangely  mislead- 
ing. The  vast  wealth  of  historical  ac- 
cumulation mined  within  the  past  four  or 
five  decades  should  have  made  this  other- 
wise. The  great  stores  of  information 
brought  forth  by  German  and  English 
and  American  antiquarians  and  historians 
ought  long  since  to  have  been  absorbed 


34  A    GLANCE    AT    GOVERNMENT. 

into  the  popular  manuals,  and  thus  gone 
into  general  knowledge.  The  fact  is  that 
as  to  the  fundamental  features  of  our  own 
institutions  the  early  generations  were 
better  informed,  except  as  to  a  very  few 
things,  than  the  later ;  there  has  been  dis- 
tinct and  woful  degeneracy  on  a  matter 
of  vital  consequence  to  American  citizen- 
ship. Whether,  when  all  the  passions  of 
a  period  of  feverish  national  unrest  shall 
have  subsided,  the  political  ground  lost 
shall  have  been  recovered  in  time  to  pre- 
vent grave  detriment  to  our  society,  can- 
not be  predicted,  but  the  fear  of  some 
wise  men  is  that  even  the  salvation  of  the 
union  is  not  itself,  great  a  fact  as  it  is  by 
all  admitted  to  be,  sufficient  recompense 
for  the  retrogradation  in  the  essential  here 
described.  No  people  ought  ever  to  for- 
get its  organic  character,  even  for  a  short 
period.  Perhaps  no  people  ever  do  en- 
tirely. And  this  doubt  that  it  does  relieves 
the  philosophic  mind  from  much  of  the 
uncertainty  on  this  head. 

The   study  of  institutions    is   the    pro- 
foundest  and  most  engaging  of  all  secular 


THE   STUDY    OF    POLITICS.  35 

studies.  It  is  of  wider  human  interest 
than  any  other,  and  has  most  of  all  to  do 
with  human  affairs,  so  far  as  they  shape 
themselves  with  reference  to  merely  tran- 
sitory ends.  And  even  in  the  contempla- 
tion of  the  permanent  order  that  exists 
for  us  beyond  the  present  life,  the  science 
of  government  is  of  transcendent  utility 
and  surpassing  fascination.  At  least,  it  is 
so  for  all  broadly-based  intellects.  There 
is  only  the  shadow  of  a  truth  in  the  pes- 
simistic remark  of  Thomas  Paine  that 
"  government  is  a  necessary  evil."  We 
must  recognize  the  sharp  limitations  of 
human  virtue,  and  thus  see  that  restraint 
is  a  part  of  the  economy  of  existence. 
Therefore  government  is  a  necessary  good, 
not  evil.  The  evil  in  society  is  the  evil  in 
each  human  being,  plus  the  evil  in  hu- 
manity, minus  the  good  in  each  human 
being,  plus  the  good  in  humanity.  The 
study  of  politics,  therefore,  is  the  study 
of  the  best  good  for  society,  and  if  it  re- 
sult otherwise,  it  is  because  the  end  is  per- 
verted, and  not  because  it  is  not  a  true  end. 
This  leads    to  my  formula :    Politics  is 


36  A    GLANCE    AT    GOVERNMENT. 

the  application  of  the  good  that  is  possi- 
ble to  the  existing  status.  This  formula 
does  not  exclude  ideals.  Ideals  become 
reals  when  the  conditions  for  reality  ex- 
ist. The  philosopher  cherishes  ideals,  the 
statesman  adapts  them  to  circumstances. 
The  ideal  is  Goethe's  "  ever-womanly," 
drawing  us  on  to  infinite  heights  after 
almost  infinite  suffering.  The  great 
tragedy  of  "  Faust"  is  life's  tragedy  with 
a  miracle  at  the  beginning  and  at  the  end. 
Human  government  is  the  most  com- 
plex of  humanly-created  things.  It  de- 
mands for  its  exercise  the  best  powers  of 
the  human  character.  The  government 
of  the  United  States  is  the  most  complex 
of  all  governments  in  history.  Its  safety 
consists  in  its  being  always  what  it  was 
intended  to  be  by  those  who  formed  it — 
a  government  of  the  peoples  of  the  sev- 
eral States,  forming  what  Washington  and 
Franklin,  Hamilton  and  Madison,  Jay 
and  Jefferson  styled  in  the  well  accepted 
phrase  of  their  day  "  a  confederacy." 
With  the  spirit  of  representative  democ- 
racy and    the  form  of  a  confederated  re- 


THE   STUDY    OF    POLITICS.  3/ 

public,  its  name  describing  itself  better 
than  any  formal  description  could,  the 
republic  of  the  United  States  stands  as 
the  heir  of  Teutonic  primaeval  institutions 
and  the  free  spirit  of  the  Aryan  race  in 
all  its  branches. 


a2(y??i 


THE 
UNITY  OF  SOVEREIGNTY. 


Sovereignty  in  a  state  is  that  which  is 
over  all,  governing  all.  There  is  no  con- 
flict of  opinion  as  to  what  is  sovereign  in 
Great  Britain  or  Russia.  The  government 
in  each  nation  is  master,  absolute  and,  ex- 
cept as  to  the  claims  of  Nihilists  and  other 
cranks,  unchallenged  master.  These  gov- 
ernments differ,  and  so  the  sovereign  is  not 
the  same  in  both.  One  is  free,  the  other 
despotic.  But  in  both  instances  it  is  the 
government,  and  not  the  people,  who  con- 
stitute the  sovereignty.  It  is  true  that,  in 
the  former,  a  large  portion  of  the  public  is 
directly  interested  in  choosing  the  House 
of  Commons,  which  is  the  virtual  governor 
of  the  kingdom,  but  the  sovereignty  is 
vested,  after  all,  in  the  government,  and 
38 


THE    UNITY    OF    SOVEREIGNTY.  39 

not,  as  with  us,  in  the  persons  who  elect 
the  government.  The  difference,  in  brief, 
between  the  United  States  and  the  United 
Kingdom  of  Great  Britain  and  Ireland  is 
this  : — The  republic  has  never  clothed  its 
agents  with  sovereignty,  the  monarchy- 
has.  Under  the  unwritten  constitution  of 
"  Our  Old  Home"  absolute  sovereignty 
vests — no  matter  whether  originally  by 
public  consent,  as  contended  for  by  Free- 
man the  historian,  or  not — in  the  House 
of  Commons,  which  uses  fictions  implying 
sovereignty  in  the  King  or  Queen.  The 
Parliament  has  gradually  acquired  sover- 
eignty, and  the  House  of  Commons  has 
more  and  more  acquired  single  control 
over  everything.  The  cabinet  comes  and 
goes  as  the  House  changes  its  will.  The 
nominal  sovereign  still  addresses  her 
"  Lords  and  Gentlemen,"  but  in  truth  they, 
or  rather  the  latter,  are  her  masters. 

The  people  of  the  United  States  retained 
sovereignty  in  the  beginning.  They  could 
not  part  with  it  without  loss  of  autonomy. 
They  cannot  part  with  it  now  without  such 
loss.     All  the  writers  on  public  law  affirm 


40  A    GLANCE    AT    GOVERNMENT. 

the  truth   of  this  philosophical   negative. 
It  is,  in  fact,  self-evident. 

If,  as  has  been  defined,  sovereignty  is 
that  which  is  over  all,  which  governs  or 
controls  all  in  an  unqualified  sense,  we 
may  easily  see  that  while  the  King  in  an 
absolute  monarchy,  the  King  and  legisla- 
ture in  some,  and  the  legislature  with  "  the 
government"  in  other  constitutional  mon- 
archies is  sovereign,  the  people  only  in  a 
republic  are  sovereign.  Therefore,  here 
the  people  of  the  United  States  possess 
the  sovereignty.  A  fallacious  idea  has 
occasionally  been  expressed,  that  the  Con- 
stitution of  the  Union  is  the  sovereign. 
That  could  not  be  because  it  is  the  simple 
expression  of  the  will  of  the  true  sovereigns 
on  certain  points.  At  other  times  the  fallacy 
has  even  been  more  ludicrous,  namely,  that 
each  individual,  suffrage-endowed  citizen 
is  a  sovereign,  and  that  there  are  as  many 
sovereigns  in  the  United  States  as  there 
are  citizens  entitled  to  vote.  This  refutes 
itself,  because  these  citizens  are  such  by  the 
will  of  the  State.  Again,  the  exigencies  of 
argument  have  driven  many  late  writers 


THE    UNITY   OF    SOVEREIGNTY.  4 1 

on  public  law  to  declare  without  reason, 
except  the  physical  one  of  a  restored 
Union  after  a  bloody  war,  that  the  people 
of  the  United  States  are  one  people, — 
whether  at  the  Declaration  of  Indepen- 
dence or  the  adoption  of  the  present  Con- 
stitution they  do  not  agree.  The  old  State 
rights  school  still  holds  to  the  sovereignty 
of  the  States  as  States,  and  not  in  a  con- 
federacy.* 

*"  Confederacy"  is  the  word  used  by  Washington, 
Madison,  Hamilton,  and  others  among  the  founders  of 
the  government. 

Right  here  I  will  observe  that  even  the  wise  old 
fathers  did  not  always  carry  in  their  minds  the  distinc- 
tion between  the  sovereign  State  and  the  legislature  of 
a  State, — a  distinction  sometimes  lost  sight  of  com- 
pletely in  more  recent  times.  The  sovereignty  of  a 
State  resides  only  in  its  people.  It  is  expressed  in  its 
final  absolute  fonn  in  the  State's  adoption  of  an  organic 
law  either  for  itself  or  the  confederation  of  which  it  is 
a  part. 

Mr.  Kurd's  concept  of  a  Union-State  always  sover- 
eign, with  power  to  coerce  North  Carolina  and  Rhode 
Island  when  they  chose  for  a  time  to  remain  out  of  the 
Union  of  States  under  the  new  Constitution,  is  not  his- 
torical, whatever  else  it  is.  It  is  not  in  line  with  the 
facts  he  uses  so  powerfully  to  demolish  the  arguments 
of  the  consolidation  school. 

4* 


42  A    GLANCE    AT    GOVERNMENT. 

The  great  writers  concur  with  Vattel,* 
who  says,  "  every  sovereignty,  properly  so 
called,  is,  in  its  own  nature,  one  and  indi- 
visible." Montesquieu,  Locke,  Puffendorf, 
Burlamaqui,  Liebig,  and  others,  all  speak 
of  the  indivisibility  of  sovereignty. 

The  mistake  has  arisen  either  from  the 
necessity  for  making  it  or  honestly  from  a 
confusion  of  ideas.  It  is  not  remembered 
that  the  sovereign  is  the  possessor,  and 
the  powers  are  the  things  possessed.  The 
old  theory  of  our  federal  government  was 
that  it  was  a  simple  agency  of  the  people 
of  the  several  States.  It  would  seem  that 
few  in  strictness  hold  that  theory  now. 
And  yet  there  would  appear  to  be  no 
reason  for  abandoning  it  in  view  of  the 
history  of  the  two  constitutions  the  coun- 
try has  lived  under.     If,  as  the  Supreme 


Discussions  as  to  the  fundamental  character  of  our 
government  are  always  in  order,  and,  while  I  make  no 
apology  for  adhering  to  the  State  rights  school,  I  utterly 
disclaim  any  purpose  to  unsettle  anything  which  may 
ever  have  been  definitively  settled. 

*  Book  I.,  Sec.  65,  cited  by  Sage,  "  Republic  of 
Republics,"  p.  306,  Fifth  edition. 


THE    UNITY    OF    SOVEREIGNTY,  43 

Court  of  the  United  States  held  in  the 
slaughter-house  cases,  there  has  been  no 
fundamental  changes  in  the  structure  of 
our  cfovernment  as  a  result  of  the  Civil 
War,  there  is  nothing  to  induce  the 
thoughtful  citizen  to  alter  or  modify  the 
former  view  of  the  nature  of  our  institu- 
tions,— the  view  of  the  Federalists  as  well 
as  of  the  Republicans,  of  Hamilton  as  well 
as  of  Madison.*  After  all,  there  is  not 
much    danger    that    the    holding  of  such 


*  The  second  of  the  Articles  of  Confederation  and 
Perpetual  Union  between  the  States  declares  that 
"each  State  retains  its  sovereignty,  freedom,  and  in- 
dependence, and  every  power,  jurisdiction,  and  right, 
which  is  not  by  this  Confederation  expressly  delegated 
to  the  United  States,  in  Congress  assembled."  Here 
is  a  precise  delimitation,  clearly  showing  the  distinc- 
tion between  sovereignty  and  powers.  Hon.  John 
Randolph  Tucker,  a  professor  of  law  in  Washington 
and  Lee  University,  and  one  of  the  ablest  constitutional 
lawyers  of  this  generation,  tells  me  that  he  illustrates 
the  matter  thus:  Sovereignty  is  the  dynamo;  powers 
are  its  capabilities. 

Nothing  that  occurred  in  the  formation,  adoption, 
and  ratification  of  the  present  Constitution,  with  its 
various  amendments,  has  in  the  slightest  degree  inter- 
fered with  the  distinction  drawn  in  the  above  Article  II. 


44  A    GLANCE    AT    GOVERNMENT. 

opinions  will  break  up  the  confederacy. 
The  tendency  of  holding  it  would  rather 
be  to  cement  it.  And  an  honest  view,  any 
way,  one  consonant  with  the  facts,  is  in- 
finitely preferable  to  a  dishonest  one. 


THE 

SAVING   PRINCIPLE. 


A  CIVIC  virtue  unspotted  and  unsleeping ; 
a  citizenhood  both  conserving  and  progres- 
sive ;  a  respect  everywhere  for  private 
riehts,  and  a  sense  in  all  breasts  of  the 
dignity  of  human  nature  and  the  reflected 
dignity  of  human  government  in  a  free 
land  ;  then,  as  the  inevitable  result  of  do- 
mestic integrity,  a  policy  of  justice  to  for- 
eign powers  and  of  insistence  upon  justice 
from  them,  a  clear  adherence  to  the  Amer- 
ican doctrine  that  America  yields  nothing 
to  pressure  from  without  and  herself  exerts 
no  pressure  to  secure  purposes  external  to 
her  true  and  traditional  policy.  These  are 
the  moral  forces  of  a  great  people  separated 
by  two  oceans  from  most  other  powers  of 
the  earth  and  by  spirit  and  structure  of 
government  from  nearly  every  one  of  them. 

45 


46  A    GLANCE   AT    GOVERNMENT. 

With  a  keen  eye  to  home  interests,  with 
thorough  education  for  the  masses  sup- 
planting half-ideas, — a  foe  infinitely  worse, 
if  permanent,  than  meek  ignorance, — with 
a  profound  respect  for  law  so  long  as  it 
is  law,  and  an  intelligent  choice  of  law- 
makers and  administrators,  the  civic  virtue 
above  described  is  bound  to  remain  forever 
as  the  characteristic  of  the  highest  devel- 
opment of  the  greatest  race  in  the  world's 
history.  As  it  has  lived  in  Norway  and 
Switzerland  and  Great  Britain  from  early 
times,  so  it  will  endure  in  this  younger 
branch  of  a  great  family, — its  saving 
principle. 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALJFORNIA  AT  LOS  ANGELES 

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